OpenCourseWare's Elsevier Agreement
By Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 4/15/2008
MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) has reached a landmark agreement with publisher Elsevier that will allow MIT faculty to include Elsevier content within MIT's open access OCW database to be freely downloaded, used, and shared under a Creative Commons license. Under the agreement, MIT can include up to three figures, including tables and illustrations, per individual article—up to ten per journal volume—and up to 100 words from a single text extract, or 300 words from a series of extracts.
Steve E. Carson, external relations director for the project, told the Chronicle of Higher Education the agreement was a “cost-saver” for MIT that would both increase the richness of OCW offerings and reduce the burden on MIT professors and staff. Elsevier is the first major publisher to agree to such a license with MIT, though MIT officials hope others will follow. MIT chartered OCW in 2000 in an ambitious plan to offer free publication of course materials used at MIT.
